Lapshin: “The Azerbaijani Regime Kidnaps and Kills Anyone it Dislikes”

PARIS — Russian-Israeli blogger Alexander Lapshin has spoken about his sufferings in Azerbaijani prison in an interview with Le Monde French daily.

In the article titled “The Azerbaijani regime kidnaps and kills anyone it dislikes”, the blogger says he has travelled to more than 130 countries, adding he has no interest in politics, but he likes ‘the world, nature, history, beautiful women and tasty food.’

“Even in my worst nightmares I could not have imagined that I would fall victim to the political game between the two cruel dictators – President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev,” he said.

Lapshin shared the details of his arrest in Belarus on 15 December 2016. “The police officers stormed into my hotel room, shouting, “on the ground or we will shoot you”. You are arrested upon the Azerbaijani demand for visiting Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh),” he said.

The blogger noted that the officers did not spot that his laptop was turned on, since at the moment Lapshin was talking to his wife, who witnessed her husband’s arrest and immediately reported it to the Russian and Israeli embassies.

“It is important to stress that if Belarus were a lawful state, it would not arrest me, let alone my extradition [to Azerbaijan]. I had not broken any law of Belarus, had not committed any crime,” he says, adding the extradition convention between Belarus and Azerbaijan makes it clear that any request on extradition must be rejected if it has political reasons.

Lapshin says he spent seven months in solidarity confinement in Azerbaijani prison as a violation of international law.

He also added that he had never voiced calls for the violation of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity.